Improvement in coating lead pipes



I y l il'n'rrnn Snares PATENT Orrron.

ROBERT P. BERRY, OE NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND.

IMPROVEMENT IN COATING LEAD PIPES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 132,746, dated November 5, 1872.

To all whom it may concern: 7

Be it known that I, ROBERT P. BERRY, of Newport, county of Newport, and State of Rhode Island, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Lead Pipes and other articles made of lead; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

Lead, owing to its cheapness, its facility of fashioning it into pipes and other articles of any desired form or shape, and particularly its convenience in transporting and adapting it, by bending and cutting, to parts of difficult access, and its ease of repairing, is a material of universal use, notwithstanding its deleterious effects produced by the formation, with water, air, and foreign matters carried in the water, of certain poisonous salts.

Numerous attempts have been made to coat the interior of pipes and cisterns or other vessels intended to contain Water with some innocuous substances; but so far as my knowledge extends, they have more or less failedin the object sought to be attained. Metallic or other coatings have been found to be gen erally liable to corrode or to be brittle, rendering pipes practicably inflexible, so that, besides increasing the cost of the pipe, they afforded but little or no protection. The object of my invention, therefore, relates to and consists in effectually protecting or shielding the lead by a comparatively cheap and effective material applied by a process which is both expeditious and of easy application to pipes or other vessels of lead, however located.

To carry out my invention, I employ a solution of chroniate or bichromate of potassa, acidulated or not, as the case may be, and bringing it in contact with the lead to be protected by any of the processes known. In this manner an insoluble chromate of lead will be formeld on the surface of the lead to be protecte It will be seen that lead manufactured into pipes, tanks, sheets, or any other form, may be treated by immersion in the solution, or if to be applied to pipes by pouring it into them, or the surface of the article may be coated with a brush; but care should be taken to allow sufficiently-prolonged contact of the solution with the lead, or to apply it repeatedly, until the desired thickness of the protective coating is obtained.

Old and new articles of lead may be treated in like manner and with like effect.

In houses in which they have been placed, pipes may be protected by filling the pipes with the solution.

I may add that pipes or other leaden vessels treated in the manner herein described, may be bent or soldered without materially impairing the prepared surface.

Having thus described my said invention and the manner in which the same is or may be carried into effect, what I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent. is

lead pipes or other articles of lead coated with o and protected by an insoluble chromate of lead formed upon its surface, as and for the purposes set forth.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification before two subscribing witnesses.

ROBERT P. BERRY.

Witnesses MARY E. MARSH, BENJAMIN MARSH, 2d. 

